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have shadows added.
These possibilities are, however, not always welcomed. In a Newsweek article entitled"A
Font a Day Keeps My Muse Away?", journalist Jerry Adler expresses a strong dislike of
the visualisation oflanguage through word-processors, which leads to a situation where he
has to choose from "dozens of fonts in a mind-boggling array of sizes, from a cornucopia
ofborder designs and an array ofterminal curlicues, darts, starbursts and fleurs-de-lis that
would look presumptuous on the letterhead of an emperor". He calls himself an
"extremist" on the subject of verbal vs. graphic representation, a puritan who wants to
keep the two separated, not go along with theories that want to blur the border between
two forms ofrepresentation and electronic writing that put the theories into practice. He
wants to use words to describe what he has to say, without having to worry about what
they look like on the page, because "I'm a writer, that's what I do."
Some might agree, but the majority of users ofword-processors enjoy the greater power
that electronic writing undoubtedly allows over the visual appearance of the text - and
with high-quality printers now affordable and direct publishing of electronic text on the
internet more and more popular, authors at times have complete control over the
presentation, the peritext, of their writing. So far printing technology has led to an
increasing separation between the author and his/her text, a consequence of electronic
writing is to bring the two now closer together again.
Before Gutenberg's invention of the movable-letter printing press in 1434 when the
mass-reproduction of identical books became possible, the majority of books were
handwritten. They were done with amazing skill, often with ornate illustrations and
elaborate initial letters. Their creators were, as well as authors or copyists, artists at the
same time, responsible not only for the contents, but also for the appearance of their
texts. Gutenberg's invention changed this and the author's job (writing and preparing
the textual side) and the typographer/printer's(working on the visual side of a text)
became two separate activities. Writers handed over the responsibility fat the layout and
look of their text to the printer. Typography was no longer considered an integral part of
67 Jerry Adler, "A Font a Day Keeps my Muse Away", Newsweek, 24 October 1994. p·49·
Chapter 4 - page 151